Estonian Parliamentary Elections 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 250 Estonian political advertisers during the 2023 Parliamentary Elections to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (February 24th - March 2nd 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (February 1st - March 2nd 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €233,337 and ran 2618 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend
EKRE 35


1. Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond (€57,937)
2. Palle Kõlar (€1,755)
3. Elar Niglas (€1,253)

 327 €70,250
RE 47


1. Reformierakond Tallinnas (€12,598)
2. Eesti Reformierakond (€7,949)
3. Reformierakond Harjumaal (€4,289)

 707 €51,823
SDE 39


1. Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond (€23,253)
2. Tartu ja Tartumaa sotsiaaldemokraadid (€3,806)
3. Jevgeni Ossinovski (€2,994)

 640 €45,162
I 33


1. Isamaa (€11,913)
2. Urmas Reinsalu (€3,493)
3. Riho Terras (€2,585)

 241 €30,616
E200 28


1. Eesti 200 (€10,201)
2. Eesti 200 Tartu (€3,028)
3. Jaak Laineste Eesti 200 (€2,499)

 365 €21,949
K 47


1. Jüri Ratas (€1,555)
2. Keskerakond (€973)
3. Igor Gräzin (€964)

 338 €13,537

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €89,525 and ran 1522 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

SDE

38


1. Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond (€14,179)
2. Tartu ja Tartumaa sotsiaaldemokraadid (€1,276)
3. Jevgeni Ossinovski (€1,182)

393

€23,749

EKRE

32


1. Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond (€14,240)
2. Elar Niglas (€653)
3. Palle Kõlar (€638)

216

€19,839

RE

41


1. Reformierakond Tallinnas (€4,311)
2. Kristina Šmigun-Vähi (€1,673)
3. Hanah Lahe (€856)

293

€15,443

I

32


1. Isamaa (€4,356)
2. Urmas Reinsalu (€1,822)
3. Kristian Taska (€691)

167

€13,367

E200

25


1. Eesti 200 (€4,392)
2. Jaak Laineste Eesti 200 (€1,322)
3. Eesti 200 Tartu (€1,171)

252

€10,257

K

46


1. Keskerakond (€645)
2. Jüri Ratas (€619)
3. Priit Toobal (€437)

201

€6,870

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. The amount on the right shows the total Euros spend on that specific target audience.

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)